On July 31, 2025, the Italian Constitutional Court issued Sentenza 142/2025, ruling on the combined referrals from Bologna, Milan, Florence, and Rome that had questioned whether unlimited citizenship by descent was constitutional. The Court rejected the challenges. But in doing so, it issued language so protective of citizenship rights that legal scholars immediately recognized it as the most powerful legal tool against the government’s own reform.

What the Court Was Asked

The four referring courts had raised two main concerns. First, that unlimited ius sanguinis could distort the concept of the “Italian people” under Article 1 of the Constitution by extending citizenship to millions with no genuine connection to Italy. Second, that it created an inequality under Article 3 by treating descendants of unbroken Italian lineage more favorably than foreigners who had lived in Italy for years.

The Constitutional Court was asked, in essence, whether Parliament should be required to impose generational or connection-based limits on citizenship by descent.

How the Court Ruled

The Court declared the Article 1 (“Italian People”) argument inadmissible, finding that the Constitution does not define “People” and that the determination of who qualifies as a citizen is a matter for parliamentary discretion, not judicial intervention. The Court cannot substitute itself for the legislature in making such fundamentally political choices.

The Court declared the Article 3 (equality) argument unfounded, holding that descendants of an unbroken Italian bloodline and other categories of citizenship applicants are in substantively different situations. Because these situations are not comparable, differential treatment does not violate the equality principle.

The Language That Changed Everything

The outcome might have appeared like a defeat for citizenship applicants, but the Court’s reasoning contained statements of extraordinary significance. Drawing on and endorsing the Cassazione’s established jurisprudence, the Court affirmed that:

The Court characterized citizenship acquired iure sanguinis as acquired at “original title” (a titolo originario). This is a constitutionally significant designation: an “original” right is one that exists from the moment of the triggering event (birth), not from the moment of state recognition.

Crucially, the Court issued no monito (warning) to the legislature about the prior system. In Italian constitutional practice, when the Court sees a constitutional fragility in a law but chooses not to strike it down immediately, it typically signals to Parliament that reform is needed through an explicit or implicit warning. The absence of any such signal in Sentenza 142/2025 means the Court saw no constitutional defect in the prior regime of unlimited ius sanguinis.

The Practical Impact

The immediate practical effect of Sentenza 142/2025 was to unfreeze the thousands of cases that had been suspended by courts across Italy pending the Court’s ruling. Cases in Bologna, Rome, Milan, Florence, and other cities that had been on hold since late 2024 could now proceed under the rules that were in force at the time of filing.

The Court also confirmed, in paragraph 7 of its reasoning, that applications submitted before March 27, 2025 continue to be governed by the prior rules. This was not a new legal principle, as D.L. 36/2025 itself contained this provision, but the Court’s endorsement of it removed any ambiguity.

More broadly, Sentenza 142/2025 provided the constitutional foundation for the challenges to D.L. 36/2025 that were already being prepared. The Turin referral, filed the month before, drew heavily on the principles of permanent and imprescriptible citizenship that the Court would go on to affirm. The Campobasso and Mantova referrals, filed later, built on the same foundation.

A Ruling Against Applicants That Became Their Strongest Weapon

The paradox of Sentenza 142/2025 cannot be overstated. The four referring courts sought to restrict citizenship by descent by imposing judicial limits. The Constitutional Court refused. But in refusing, it articulated the very principles that now form the backbone of the argument against the legislature’s own, far more drastic, restriction. If citizenship iure sanguinis is truly permanent, imprescriptible, and acquired at original title from the moment of birth, then a law that retroactively declares it never to have existed confronts a formidable constitutional obstacle.

This article is provided for informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice. Last updated: March 21, 2026.